It’s official! We’ll be making a formal announcement in a few days, but I just couldn’t wait. 8 80 Cities will be bringing The Better Block Foundation to Canada for the very first time for a Vision Zero Pop-Up on Danforth Ave! For a tactical urbanist geek like me, this is Christmas morning plus Halloween plus Valentines Day plus a four day weekend times a million. We’ve had the pleasure of working with Better Block on a number of projects in the past but hosting them in Toronto is a whole new level of awesome.

While 8 80 Streets is an exciting project, its origin story has tragic roots. The private donor who is funding the project was motivated to act when 46 people walking or bicycling were killed on Toronto’s streets in 2018. We talked about some of our work on road safety initiatives. We shared project examples of past collaborations with Better Block that temporarily re-designed streets in ways that put road safety front and center. By the end of the conversation, the resident offered to fund us to bring Better Block to Toronto and demonstrate three safe street projects around the city. 8 80 Streets was born, and Danforth Avenue will host the first of these demonstrations in the coming weeks.

Working with local business, residents, and artists, we will be reimagine how Danforth Avenue could look if it were a people-first street. We will demonstrate that people-friendly streets contribute to the overall health, equity, and vibrancy of the community and city. Over the coming weeks we’ll release more details about the designs and additions we’ll temporarily make to the Danforth, one of Toronto’s most iconic streets.

Stay tuned! We can’t wait to share it all with you and hope to see you on the Danforth between Woodbine Ave. and Woodmount Ave. on August 23-24. We hope you’ll join us as we experience Toronto’s first ever vision zero based street makeover.